Protocol of
Thesis Writing
Synopsis:
It is an introducing write up submitted for approval of a
thesis and is not written for publication. It should be
framed according to the following format.
1.
Introduction ---- Two or three sentences to introduce
the subject.
2.
Significance ---- Which should explain the reason for
choosing the topic, the main reason may be;
i.
A common ailment
ii.
Rare but interesting problem
iii.
Inadequately studied aspect of a disease.
iv.
An innovation.
3.
Method of working ---- which should explain criteria
for selection and exclusion, controls, blind, double blind
trial, method of tabulation and calculations, use of
computers and duration of follow up.
4.
A brief resume of the existing literature on the
subject with references.
5.
Copy of the Performa which will be used.
---- Before starting work on the thesis, a research protocol
or synopsis on
the topic should be submitted for approval.
---- The research protocol should be of about 1200 words
(4-5 pages of A- 4 size) on the topic highlighting important
aspects of the
study including its purpose, material and methods. The
research protocol
should be submitted with a covering letter signed by the
candidate and
supervisor.
Supervisor:
1.
The work on and writing of thesis / dissertation
should be done under the direct supervisor approved by the
University or the licensing authority of the candidate’s
own country.
2.
A supervisor must have the qualification like FRCP,
FRCS, diplomat of the American board or equivalent
qualification recognized by the licensing authority of the
candidate’s own country.
3.
Supervisor must have at least four years of post
fellowship experience in the relevant specialty.
4.
If the candidate changes the supervisor, candidate
should immediately inform the university or its authorized
campus or representative in writing.
5.
A supervisor can take up to four candidates for
supervision of research.
6.
When the thesis is completed, the supervisor must
endorse it through certification.
Dissertation:
‘It is
a detailed discourse on a subject specialty submitted for a
higher degree in a university.’
Topic
of thesis:
This can
be done in consultation with the candidate and the
supervisor. Topic already taken up in the past years should
preferably be avoided. Please refer to the ‘Examples of
thesis topic brochure’ or university website link for the
topic selection. Candidate should choose and send six
different topics pertinent to come to final after university
approval.
The request for topic can be
channeled through the supervisor, stating supervisor’s
willingness to directly supervise the candidate’s work and
approval of his / her proposed work and its topic.
Candidate can select and topic of his /
her own interest which must be most prevalent in the
community, as a rare disorder will not be accepted by the
university, depending upon the specialty, one must identify
a subject of one’s future interest.
Thesis
details:
- Thesis should be of 100-150 pages of A-4 sized paper.
- Typed on one side with double spacing.
- There should be a uniform margin of 3 cm at the top,
bottom, right and left sides of every corner.
- There should be no typographical or spelling mistakes.
- Each and every page should be serially numbered in the
upper right corner.
- Photographs are interspersed with the text, charts,
tables and other illustrations are given separately at
the end.
- These are numbered and also marked in the text.
- Abbreviations should never be used. Only standard
abbreviations should be used and while using them the
word for which it stands for should be mentioned like
Acute Myocardial Infraction ( AMI ), Coronary Artery
Disease ( CAD ), because PID may mean ‘Pelvic
Inflammatory Disorders’ or ‘Prolapsed Intervertebral
Disc’ while the candidate might have used it for
‘Paediatric Infractions Diseases’.
- Graphs and illustrations should be used as these are
more convenient to follow.
- Information given in the graphs and illustrations
should not be repeated in the text.
- Computer print outs must be visible. Use of dot matrix
printers must be avoided.
- Abbreviations like Pts, +ve, -ve, wks, Mths, yrs
should not be used, full words like Patients, Positive,
Negative, weeks, Months and years should be written.
- Candidate should have to be specific and précised and
nothing should be left to imagination. e.g., the
statement ‘majority of the patients in this study were
below the age of 40 years’ should preferably be
written as ‘70% of the patients were below the age of
40 years’.
- In the beginning of a sentence or a paragraph, always
write the figures in words.
- If the number of case studied are too small to have
any statistical significance, may be rejected by
university.
- In case of suspicion or fraudulent data or thesis
material, university can ask the raw data of the study
from the candidate and detail from the institution where
such a study has been conducted.
- Poorly typed thesis will not accepted by the
university.
- Spelling errors, grammatical goofs, language mistakes
might become the basis for rejection of even properly
arranged thesis material with good technical data.
- Each section of thesis like Introduction, Patients and
Methods, Results, Discussion and References should start
on a separate page.
- Title page should have the complete title or topic of
thesis, name of the candidate along with his/her
academic qualifications, Institutional attachment and
postal address.
- Language used should be simple, direct and precise.
- Direct quotations should be minimally used.
- When used, quotations should be within inverted commas
and should always be acknowledged.
- Unacknowledged adaptation, too many quotations or too
much text book material will be discredited.
- Collection of old clinical records by others, in which
the candidate has not taken part, will not be
acceptable.
- Photographs should be sharp, glossy black and white
prints sized 5” X 7” the letters, numbers and
symbols should be clear.
- The number of the photograph should be indicated on
top of the figure with on arrow to identify upside of
the picture.
- Paper clips should not be used as they spoil the
pictures.
- Figures should not be bent or mounted on cardboard.
- In case, the photographs of some persons are used,
either the subjects must not be identifiable or their
pictures must be accompanied by written permission to
use their photograph.
- Black and white films can be obtained from colored
photographs.
- Using scanner technology very sharp and clear results
can be obtained.
- Free hand or typed written lettering will not be
acceptable.
- If a figure has been published already, due
acknowledgement to the original source should be made.
- Legends of illustrations must be typed on a separate
page.
- All the photographs and illustrations should
preferably be drawn in equal size.
- Each table should be typed in double space on a
separate sheet.
- Tables should not be submitted as photographs.
- Internal, horizontal and vertical rules should not be
used.
- Data used from published or unpublished source should
be acknowledged.
- There should be no blank space in the table.
- Graphs can be used as an alternative to tables but
there should be no duplication in data, in graph and
tables.
- Charts and tables should be understandable so that if
presented, they could impart total information without
reference to the text.
- Photomicrographs should have internal scale marks.
- Symbols, arrows or letters used should contrast with
the background.
- Measurements of length, height, weight and volume
should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram or
liter) or their decimal multiplies.
- Temperatures should be given in degree Celsius. Blood
pressure should be given in millimeters of mercury.
- All haematological and clinical chemistry measurements
should be reported in metric system in terms of
International System of units (SI).
Title
Page:
Title
page should include the topic of thesis, first’ middle’
initial’ and last name of the author (candidate), highest
academic degree of the candidate, name of the supervisor
with his/her highest academic degree, name of the department
and institution where the work was done, the date of the
submission of thesis and the name of the university.
Title
should never contain any abbreviation, chemical formulae,
propriety names, Jargon and the like.
Review
of the Literature:
- It is an essential part.
- It should be a collective review and critique in the
candidates own words of various view points supported by
relevant data.
- The review should be properly referenced.
- The method of citing references in the text and
listing cited references at the end of the text are
describe in succeeding paragraphs.
Abstract
-should
not be more than 150 words. It should contain the essence of
introduction, the purpose of study, the methods, specific
results, their statistical significance and the main
conclusions.
Structured
Abstract-Should
not be more than 250 words and the pattern should contain
objective, design, setting, patients/subjects/material,
intervention, main outcome measures, result and conclusion.
Design-
concise
methodology according to the type of study chosen should be
given.
- Study may be retrospective when it is based on past
patients and their records or prospective when certain
patients are selected and followed over a period of
time.
- Selection of patients could be random or based on
certain criteria.
- The method of data collection is related both to aims
and objectives of the problem being studied and to the
research design being followed.
- Basic method of data collection are by observation,
interviews, questionnaires, measurements, project
techniques or by using written information from existing
records and reports.
- After collection, collected data should be critically
analyzed.
- Data analysis is the process by
which the researcher summarizes and interprets data to
conclude to various references.
- Qualitative data should be summarized as rate, ratios,
proportions and percentages, while quantitative data
should be summarized by other measures e.g. mean,
median, mode, standard deviation, standard error.
- Interpretation of data summaries
is extracting the meaning from the data.
- Data can be presented in various ways like tables,
graphs(linear or logarithmic axes), bar charts, pie
charts, histograms, pictograms, scatter diagrams, etc
depending upon the nature of data.
- Result should be in logical sequence with the
main results being stated first.
- Data should be reported in sufficient detail to
justify the conclusions.
- Results and conclusions are best arrived through
mathematics.
- Discussion the result of the study should be
examined and interpreted, and implication and
limitations described.
- Similarities and differences between the finding of
the study and those of others should be brought out and
explained through a review of the literature.
Conclusion:
This should be the last section of the text
in which conclusion or inferences drawn on the basis of the
results of study are described. The conclusion should be
linked with the objectives or purpose of the study.
Recommendations for the need or implications for further
research may be included.
·
Conclusions and recommendations should be in
conformity with the results.
·
First section of thesis should comprise of the
basic sciences in Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology,
Immunology, Genetics etc. About 10-15 % of the final bulk of
thesis should suffice as per requirement of the thesis.
·
Next section of thesis should give the aims
and objectives of the chosen study. It should be precise, to
the point and definitely relevant to the subject.
Ethics
·
In any research on human beings, each
potential subject must be adequately informed of the aims,
methods, anticipated benefits and potential hazards of the
study.
·
The doctor should obtain the subjects freely
given informed consent, preferably in writing.
·
Basic human rights should not be violated.
·
Confidentially of subjects must be maintained.
·
Names and Initials of patients in the study or
their hospital numbers should not be used especially in an
illustrative material.
Acknowledgements
·
It can be added at the beginning or at the end
of the thesis.
·
Names of the colleagues, statistician, the
computer operator and spouse if applicable while
highlighting one’s gratefulness to the supervisor.
Work on thesis should be started as soon as
possible after receiving approval of topic and synopsis by
the university.
The topic and research methodology should be
the same as approved in the research protocol.
When the dissertation / thesis is completed
and before it is submitted, the supervisor must endorse it
through certification.
Four copies of dissertation or thesis should
be submitted on loose pages secured with spiral binding.
Permanent binding will be done by the
candidate after acceptance of thesis.
Thesis must be accompanied by bank draft of 60
USD as evaluation charges.
If the thesis is not submitted on time, the
candidate will have to submit his/her thesis for the next
coming session.
Under unusual circumstances which are fully
justified, delay up to maximum of two weeks may be
permitted. In this case, late fee at the rate of
USD per week will have to be paid by
the candidate.
After submission, the thesis is examined by
Assessors approved by the university. After assessment, the
thesis may be accepted as such or returned to the candidate
with the comments of the assessors for making changes or
corrections according to the assessor’s comments. In such
a case, the candidate should resubmit the thesis as soon as
possible after making the required amendments. OR thesis may
be rejected, in which case the reasons for not accepting it
will be communicated to the candidate based on which the
candidate may be required to amend or correct the thesis or
parts of it, or rewrite the entire thesis.
When approved, a certificate of approval of
the thesis will be issued by the university (will be pasted
on thesis)
After its submission and approval, the thesis
becomes the property of the university.
Once the thesis is submitted, it cannot be
submitted to any other institution for any other
postgraduate diploma or degree.
Annexes: Detailed
description of any material used should not be included in
the main text to avoid distraction. One or more annexes may
be added. All annexes can be included only when they
increase the understanding or evaluation of the study.
References:
·
In the Harvard system, references are given
alphabetically regardless of chronology. In the text, name
of the author and a year of publication are given in
parenthesis, unpublished observations and personal
communications should not be included in the references.
·
While writing references, accuracy in the
spellings must be ensured for names, title of the article,
name of the journal or the book, year of publication, volume
number and page number as each reference is of critical
importance.
·
In case of books, the number of edition, the
publisher’s name and the name of the city where publisher
is located must be mentioned.
·
Index medium is a standard source of
references.
·
References cited only in tables, figures or
legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence
established by the first identification in the text of the
particular table or figure.
·
Avoid using abstracts references.
·
Uniform requirements style (the Vancouver
style) is based largely on an ANSI standard style adapted by
the NLM for its databases.
·
A reference may be accompanied by brief and
relevant quotation from the text.
Study Design:
·
Prospective studies ---- Such studies
start with the cause and move forward to the effect.
·
Retrospective Studies ---- These are
backward looking in that they start with the effect and go
back to the cause. Major advantage of this study is that the
data have already been collected. But these are many
disadvantages e.g. the data may have gaps or be incomplete,
lost, damaged or inaccessible, or the recorder may not have
been willing or able to observe and record accurately,
without bias.
·
Descriptive Studies ---- In this,
researcher assembles new characteristics of an individual, a
group, a situation or a phenomenon or examines the frequency
with which an event occurs or is associated with another
event.
Descriptive studies are of two types ---- Cross sectional
studies ---- if the observations are made at one point and
longitudinal studies ---- if the observations are repeated
on the same group of patients / community over a prolonged
period of time.
·
Cohort Study ---- Subjects of the
population called cohorts are followed over time to use if
they develop disease. Cohort studies are either prospective
or retrospective. In prospective study exposed and unexposed
individuals are followed as regular intervals to learn about
the development an extent of disease.
It is an observational study of a group of people with a
special characteristic or disease who are followed –up
over a period of time to detect new events. Comparison may
be made with a control group. No interventions are normally
applied to the groups.
·
Cross sectional study ---- It is a study for a
survey of the frequency of disease, risk factors or other
characters in a defined population at one particular time.
·
Intervention Study ---- Experimental studies
or clinical trials are referred as intervention studies.
These can also be viewed as prospective cohort studies,
because the participants are identified on the basis of
their exposure status and followed to determine whether they
develop the disease and what is the effect of study drug.
Therapeutic
trial ---- This is conducted among patients with a
particular disease to determine the ability of recurrence or
decrease risk of death from that disease.
Prevention
trial ---- This type of study involves the evaluation of an
agent or procedure for reducing the risk of developing
disease among those who are free from that condition. Thus a
preventive trial can be conducted among healthy individuals.
For more info:
Master's Diploma in Medical Education
Copyright © IUFS 2004
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